Dandydish

It was an impromptu decision. We decided to go out for dinner with some good friends and plans were made. The only thing not planned was the place to go to. We were finally bundled in one car and started driving without actually knowing where were we headed to. Suggestions from the ladies was sought who duly informed us that they felt like chinese food. Last week while driving past the Hamra district, I had seen the hoarding of a new place called Chopsticks. I remembered this well as the tag line was Fresh Chinese cuisine. So we headed to the direction of Chopsticks. Once there, we were greeted by an empty restaurant. It was a weekday night and we reached the place by around 10.00 in the night. But the interiors were so warm and welcoming that we did not let the empty space bother us. Once we were seated, our server, Paul got us some complimentary Kiwi shots. It was fresh but overtly sweet for my taste. However the others on the table seemed to like this. The menu is quite exte

Birthdays are a big deal for me. Especially if it is of my better half. I normally like to plan well in advance and fill the special day with small bits of surprises all throughout. Food is an equally important part of it and I have 2 main requirements while plannig this aspect. 1.) The place should of course be exclusive 2.) It should be a place that we have never been to before. Wife's birthday was yesterday and so I began planning 10 days before this. I called up the various so called chic places to find out about their menu, availability and decor ( cos I wanted a sea facing set up this time around, after all I need to capitalise on the Red Sea.) Most of the places that I called up had a restrcition in terms of the vegetarian options that they served. Some others did not have a sea view, which I was very particular about. After a lot of phone calls and discussions with freinds and colleagues, I zeroed in on Noodles located inside the Rosewood corniche hotel. The guy on the p

It is part laziness combined with the fact that I have not been to many interesting places lately that resulted in a lull in my posting on this blog. However, a dinner yesterday night changed all that. Last couple of times during our trips to the Mall of Arabia, we glanced across this place called Chapter that claimed to serve malaysian cuisine along with some boutique bakery stuff. Honestly, it was the boutique stuff that kept us away from this place. But yesterday we were accompanied by our very good malaysian friend and hence it seemed like a safe bet to try and sample the malaysian fare. The place is chic and looks more english than malaysian to be honest, but it was new and clean with comfortable seating and seemed very welcoming. Once seated we were handed over the menu cards that had a lot of stuff that spelt malaysian with a detailed description of each item. We could see our friend's eyes light up on seeing the menu, which is always a good sign. He asked the servers if